FLESH AND SPIRIT (GILBERT BEEBE)

https://www.oldlazydog.com/blog/2019/3/19/flesh-vs-spirit

If it were as easy to give correct and satisfactory answers in all cases as to ask naughty and perplexing questions we could better afford to devote our time and paper to the elucidation of every query that our readers were pleased to propound but as it is not our numerous queries have the advantage ground children may ask questions which men may find it difficult to answer.

Question 1. Is it possible for a man to serve God with his spirit and serve sin with his flesh? 

Answer. Yes, Paul says in Romans 7.25. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. This text. Is to the point, covers the whole ground, and settles the question to all intents and purposes. If we were to write a volume on the subject, we could not strengthen the testimony. And although we believe that all the children of God who rightly understand the subject can, from their own experience corroborate this testimony, we choose to rest on this one witness for the correctness of our reply.

Question 2. According to men who understand the terms flesh and spirit, can sin attach to the flesh?

Answer. It is easier to prove by the Scriptures that sin has attached to the flesh than to define how men understand Bible terms. We readily acknowledge our incompetency to canvas the understanding of the misunderstanding of men on the subject. For although a man may understand the things of a man by the spirit of man that is in him, yet things of the Spirit of God knows no man but the spirit of God. First Corinthians 2.11. As the understanding of man is too vague and indefinite to aid us, we will turn to the word and testimony of the Good Book. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. John 3.9. From this, we learned that all that is in an unregenerated state is flesh. In a scriptural sense of the term. Adam was of the earth, earthly, and As. Such he stands to seminal head over all his offspring. And all who by natural generation are born of the flesh, as the children of Adam are flesh. Not merely the particles of matter or material substance which compose our corporal bodies, but all that we are as intellectual beings and soul, body, or spirit. So far as our relationship with Adam extends, we are flesh. And with all the culture of refined education, the Polish of human improvement or reformation, it remains true. And forever must soul remain that except the man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. In the absence of a new and spiritual birth, he is and must remain. A natural man, unable to know or discern the things of the spirit of God, and flesh and blood does not inherit the Kingdom. Neither does corruption inherit incorruption. So a man in his natural state, being in the flesh or existing only in his fleshy nature, is a stranger to all that is spiritual and holy. Need we ask if sin attaches to the flesh thus defined? And inspired apostle of the Lamb of God shuts out all room for inquiry and gives himself as an example in me that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing. And this was no vain speculation, for Paul assures us that he knew it to be so. In the absence of all good can sin be attached to the flesh. Sin is a transgression of the law. Men in their flesh nature were created in Adam under law to God. That law they have transgressed. Sin has therefore by transgression entered, and death by sin, and so death has passed upon all men because all have sinned. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. And as the wages of sin is death, and death has passed on all men, so that all flesh is grass, fading, withering, dying as a consequence of sin cannot be doubted that sin attaches to the flesh.

Perhaps our brother intended to inquire whether the flesh of men, without its connection with the natural spirit or life which animates it, can sin. If this had been the question, we should have replied in the negative, for James has told us that the flesh or body without the Spirit is just as dead as faith is without works.

It is supposed by some that regeneration, the old natural spirit of man, is renewed, reformed, purged, and made subject to the law of God. And that the carnal or fleshly mind is new, molded in some way, and that this constitutes a new birth. But such is not our understanding of the subject. We do not dispute the full concurrence of the Spirit of the flesh in all the lusts and abominations charged to the flesh in the Scriptures. We regard the natural mind and spirit of man as included by Paul when he speaks of the flesh. That Spirit which Paul himself served the law of God, was that in him which was born of the Spirit, not born of Adam, but born of God. And it was that which constituted him a child of God and an air of glory. This spirit, this life, was given to Paul and to all the election in Christ Jesus, their spiritual head and progenitor, before the world began and was communicated to them in and by regeneration. The inevitable conclusion is that which is born of the flesh, is earthly, sensual, devilish, and carnal. Vile sinful, and at war with God and holiness. That it is not changed when God's children are born of the Spirit, but although it may be subjected, crushed down, laid claims to some extent, its nature and propensity to serve sin remain, and shall remain until the sentence of the law shall be executed upon it, and it shall be sown in dishonor, in weakness and corruption. But that which is born of the Spirit is the new man, not made of the old man, but entirely new. He is after God, created in righteousness and true holiness, and sin cannot attach to it, for it is born of God. The seed remains. It is not under the law of sin but Christ in them. The hope of glory.

Question 3. Was not Paul when groaning for deliverance as in Roman 7.23. Personifying in himself that state of mind of a quickened Sinner, before he is made to understand the gospel.

Answer No. There is nothing in all the connection that will admit of such a construction of his words. Whatever Doctor Adam Clark or John Wesley may have said to the contrary, we are fully convinced that Paul, by relating his actual experience as a subject of regeneration, gave an example of the real state and experience of every heaven-born soul. If Brother Goldsmith has so far. Triumphed over the flesh, as to be no longer annoyed by the corruption and vanities of it. He is he has traveled. All traveled Paul. For although Paul as now. Reached the portals of Unsullied Day and left all the corruptions of his flesh behind him. He did not attain to that state until he put off his mortal Tabernacle. There was indeed one time, but one time in all of Paul's pilgrimage, that he came so near to that state of deliverance that he couldn't tell whether he was in the body or out of the body. We conclude he must have realized a short respite. From the annoyance of the flesh or he probably would have known whether he is in or out of the body. In this one remarkable moment of Paul's life, he was caught up in the 3rd heaven. But when he returned to the common trials, incidental to the Christian Pilgrim, he was soon reminded that there was still some trouble in his flesh. And again began to groan in good earnest. And three times he besought the Lord to deliver him from that thorn which was in his flesh. Brother Goldsmith will not contend that in that what Paul relates as succeeding his exultation of the 3rd Heaven, he was personifying the state of a quickened soul. That did not understand the gospel. Ah, he learned the power of Christ. Was to rest upon him, and he could therefore most gladly glory in his infirmities. But why should it be thought that he was describing the state of a quickened but not fully delivered soul? He was writing to a church composed of delivered souls who understood the gospel and who also understood the language of Paul, And however applicable the language used may have been to quickened souls before their deliverance, it was no less applicable to them whenever brought to feel and combat. And the corruptions of the flesh throughout their pilgrimage.

Question 4. Can a man be wretched under the gospel?

Answer. The gospel does not make the subject of it wretched, but we must remember that the flesh is not a partaker of the gospel, either of its comfort or spirituality. The flesh is not born of the Spirit, and therefore cannot inherit the Kingdom or partake of the things of the Spirit. Paul found no more than all the Saints have found a law, a ruling power in his members. Or flesh warring against the law of his mind and bringing him into bondage at times. But it is important to consider that the Christian, like the Shulamite, presents as it were. The company of two armies. While the mind with which they serve the law of God delights in it and lives by faith in Christ, the old man, the flesh, pursues the case of the flesh, and in all the lusts and vanities peculiar to the slush. And while the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness. Gentleness. Faith. And the works of the flesh are also manifest. Which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance and emulations, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envyings and murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. These are not only the works of the flesh and those who know not God, but these are the works of the flesh, and all who are born of the flesh, and hence the admonition of the apostles to the Saints, to lay aside all malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speaking. Peter did not teach them to look for these things as coming from the new man. But they were to resist them as corruptions of the old man. Nor were such admonitions addressed to young Christians only as First Peter 2.1. But the like admonitions were dealt liberally to all the Saints. Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. If Christians are so entirely delivered from all these corruptions of the flesh. Why were they thus admonished? Although the gospel supports, comforts, feeds, and encourages the Saints of God, the grace of God that brings salvation teaches that dine denying ungodliness and worldly lust, they shall live soberly. Righteously and godly in this present world. And it is no uncommon or strange thing to hear those who have received the gospel and who know its blessedness, complain and cry out in the bitterness of soul when conflicting with and crucifying the old man with his lusts, and to hear them use even as strong language, as out of the apostle. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Question 5. Was not the apostle contrasting law and grace?

Answer. Undoubtedly he was. But this contrast is displayed in the experience of the Saints. We have shown that the sentence of the law is yet to be executed upon the flesh. It is not yet delivered from the law the sentence. Does doubt art unto dust? Thou shalt return. We'll pursue our flesh to the sepulchers of our fathers, and close upon it the base of death and the grave. Until the execution of that dread sentence, the carnal mind will continue to be enmity against God, and all the depraved powers of heart and flesh shall continue their warfare against the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. But a glorious prospect opens to our faith. The Lamb appears on Mount Zion. Once he suffered the just for the unjust to bring us to God. Though he was dead, behold, he is alive forevermore and holds the keys of hell and death. In the desperate struggle of the Christian soldier, when the flesh momentarily triumphs. The desponding warrior in extremity cries out. Oh wretched man, who shall deliver me. But quick as the vivid lightning flash light breaks in the radiant beam from heaven. It looms his faith and rising, swelling gratitude utter the shout that shakes them messy battlements of death. Removes the chilling damps of the grave. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with his mind, he serves the law of God, but with his flesh the law of sin. A glorious resurrection, blessed immortality, shall result in everyone who can in spirit and in truth adopt the language of the apostle. In that deliverance which they shall realize through the Lord Jesus Christ. For if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you. The flesh. Now, so full of depravity and opposition to the spirit of holiness, shall then be quickened with a holier life. Not merely resuscitated, but it shall be the subject of a heavenly a spiritual birth. The life of God in Christ shall possess them. And in his image, they shall rise and meet him in the air, and so shall be forever with the Lord. New paragraph arrayed in glorious life. Shall these vile bodies shine?

We have briefly, as the nature of the subject would admit, replied to the several inquiries of Brother Goldsmith, and here we dismissed the subject for the present.

Middletown, New York, August 1st, 1848.